Thursday, September 09, 2010

Maybe There Won't Always Be an England

"Here in the United Kingdom, what you just said amounts to three crimes under the Public Order Act of 1986. I refer to violations of Part 1, Section 4A (intentional harassment, alarm, or distress); Part 1, Section 5 (harassment, alarm, or distress); and Part 3 (racial hatred). If convicted, you may spend years in prison, pay a substantial fine, or both."

"Racial hatred? What are you talking about?"

"The Public Order Act defines 'racial hatred' to include a reference to the victim's nationality, citizenship, or national origin. Furthermore, if a perpetrator such as yourself insults the victim intending to stir up racial hatred, then a crime has been committed." . . .

[F]our of the most troubling cases from 2008 to 2010:

1) During the 2009 G-20 London summit, the police informed journalists that if they did not stop recording a protest, they would be arrested under Section 14 of the Public Order Act. As a consequence of the threat, the journalists retreated. The Guardian newspaper published a video of what happened. Section 14 permits a senior police officer to impose conditions on individuals participating in an assembly but makes no reference to imposing conditions on news coverage of an assembly.

2) Dale McAlpine was handing out Christian leaflets near a shopping center. A police officer approached him and said that there had been complaints about the leaflets. Furthermore, McAlpine would be arrested if he made any comments that were racist or homophobic. Mr. McAlpine replied that he was not homophobic, but the Bible taught that homosexuality was a sin.

Three other police officers approached him and asked if he had made homophobic remarks. Mr. McAlpine repeated his statement. He was arrested and detained for seven hours, during which time he was forced to provide his fingerprints and a DNA sample. He was charged with causing harassment, alarm, or distress contrary to the Public Order Act. Two weeks later, the Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charge. The chief superintendent of police said, "Our officers and staff often have to make difficult decisions while balancing the law and people's rights. This is not easy[,] especially when opinions and interpretations differ."

6 comments:

Lame-R
said...

several years ago one of my cousins from England was visiting, and he was talking about their ridiculous taxes. There had actually been a proposal around that time to levy a "living tax" that you would be obliged to pay just for existing.

As I recall it did not come to pass, but who knows, maybe it did since then? Hopefully even the Brits have their breaking point, though their past seems to suggest that they are able to live perfectly contented lives under oppression (at least what we would consider oppression) for a very long time.

They've had this idiotic law on the books for nearly 25 YEARS and there's been no outcry to repeal it?

No wonder Creeping Sharia is much further along in Britain than it is here.

May we Americans always, ALWAYS find a way to deny the morally smug Social Engineers the power to coerce us into submitting to their Utopian dreams of Peace and Harmony. Somehow Utopian dreams devolve very quickly into Dystopian Nightmares.